Ironman Emilia-Romagna in Italy is another new race on the Ironman calendar. It comes with 40 Kona slots for the 2018 World Championship and a field of over 2,000 athletes. As it’s a new race in the series I’ve no historic results to compare with, but have included a couple of Frankfurt charts to add some context.

Frankfurt is a fast race and I’ll note here – as it’s been pointed out when I’ve previously used it – that the 2017 race had a shortened bike making it faster still. Ironman Italy isn’t as fast as Frankfurt, even allowing for the bike differences this would be the case, but it’s also not that much slower. The swim and run splits come in similar or faster than the Frankfurt course, so it’s only the bike that shows a real difference. Given the shorter course in Frankfurt that difference is smaller than seen here. This first race would certainly put Italy towards the faster end of European Ironman races.

DNS and DNF Rates at a selection of 2017 Ironman races

Year

Listed Athletes

Swim Finish

Swim DNS/DNF

Bike Finish

Bike DNF

Run Finish

Run DNF

Overall DNS/DNF

Emilia-Romagna

2275

2246

1.3%

2206

1.8%

2088

5.3%

8.2%

Brazil

2207

2196

0.5%

2140

2.6%

2083

2.7%

6.3%

Cairns

1112

1112

0%

1086

2.3%

1041

4.1%

7.2%

Frankfurt

2740

2702

1.4%

2621

3%

2432

7.2%

11.2%

South Africa

1898

1877

1.1%

1830

2.5%

1757

4%

7.4%

Texas

2346

2346

0%

2275

3%

2205

3.1%

6%

DNF rates for Italy look to be broadly comparable with those from the selection of championship races I’ve selected above. The bike DNF rate is particularly low and the run numbers come out at the high end, but this balances out only slightly higher than most of the other races.

Skipping further comparison, the above chart shows all medians splits divided by age group at this year’s race.

Top 10 Nationalities at Ironman Italy

Country

Count

Percentage

Italy

831

32.4

United Kingdom

252

9.8

Germany

214

8.3

France

174

6.8

Belgium

111

4.3

Russia

82

3.2

Switzerland

77

3

Poland

69

2.7

Spain

66

2.6

Austria

62

2.4

Ironman Italy 2017 Predicted Kona Qualifiers by Country

Country

Percentage of Slots

Percentage of Field

France

17.5

6.8

Germany

15.0

8.3

Italy

12.5

32.4

Denmark

10.0

1.1

Belgium

7.5

4.3

United Kingdom

7.5

9.8

Austria

7.5

2.4

Switzerland

5.0

3.0

Mexico

2.5

0.7

Slovenia

2.5

0.8

Russia

2.5

3.2

South Africa

2.5

0.3

Luxembourg

2.5

0.1

Portugal

2.5

0.5

There is a very broad spread of athletes at this year’s race which is also reflected in the likely Kona placings.

Times in the top twenty of each age group taper off quite quickly, but they also lean towards the fast end of the Ironman scale.

Ironman Italy 2017 Predicted Kona Qualification Times

Age Group

Slots

Winner

Average Kona Qualifier

Final Qualifier

M18-24

1

09:50:53

09:50:53

09:50:53

M25-29

2

08:56:17

08:58:49

09:01:22

M30-34

3

08:54:13

08:56:34

09:00:14

M35-39

4

08:56:25

09:01:57

09:04:50

M40-44

5

08:59:47

09:09:55

09:19:40

M45-49

4

09:02:01

09:15:00

09:24:27

M50-54

3

09:21:12

09:27:21

09:34:14

M55-59

2

10:07:21

10:08:39

10:09:57

M60-64

2

10:24:32

10:32:56

10:41:20

M65-69

1

11:38:47

11:38:47

11:38:47

M70-74

1

13:50:26

13:50:26

13:50:26

M75-79

1

15:25:13

15:25:13

15:25:13

F18-24

1

11:25:44

11:25:44

11:25:44

F25-29

1

10:27:35

10:27:35

10:27:35

F30-34

1

10:00:27

10:00:27

10:00:27

F35-39

1

10:03:35

10:03:35

10:03:35

F40-44

2

09:58:57

10:06:52

10:14:47

F45-49

1

09:59:44

09:59:44

09:59:44

F50-54

1

10:47:15

10:47:15

10:47:15

F55-59

1

10:57:13

10:57:13

10:57:13

F60-64

1

12:57:07

12:57:07

12:57:07

Based on the athlete list I’ve estimated how Kona slots will be allocated and from that the automatic qualification times for this race. You can compare this with other races on my Kona qualification page.